Paleoclimate Content

Taking the Earth’s Temperature Over the Past 485 Million Years

Andy Fell — September 19, 2024 - 10:36am

Palm trees in Alaska, crocodiles in Wyoming: Fossils show that Earth’s temperature has changed over hundreds of millions of years. Now a new study co-led by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona, with Professor Isabel Montañez of the �ٺ��Ƶ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has produced a curve of global mean surface temperatures over the past 485 million years. The new curve, published Sept. 19 in Science, reveals that Earth’s temperature has varied more than previously thought as life has diversified, populated land and endured multiple mass extinctions.

Carbon, Climate Change and Ocean Anoxia in an Ancient Icehouse World

Andy Fell — May 02, 2022 - 12:00pm

A new study describes a period of rapid global climate change in an ice-capped world much like the present — but 304 million years ago. Within about 300,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels doubled, oceans became anoxic, and biodiversity dropped on land and at sea.

Freezing Forests and the Icehouse Climate of Pangaea

Andy Fell — October 21, 2021 - 3:58pm

A new study by scientists at Baylor University, �ٺ��Ƶ and others considers how tolerance of plants to freezing temperatures affected forest cover and hydrology during the Pennsylvanian period, roughly 340 million to 285 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era.